I never cancelled my subscription so I decided to call the 800 number that it told me to call so that there was no interruption to my subscription.

I love the NY Times…I did not cancel my subscription. I do not want to cancel my subscription.
So far so good…
I dialed the number…here is what I heard. (I am not making this up).
“Due to high call volume your call cannot be completed right now. Why don’t you fax your question/order to….

What?

What kind of customer service nonsense is this?

I have been preaching the importance of customer service and responsiveness for 25 years and when these things happen I get so very frustrated. You know…maybe I should just cancel my subscription.

I was passing Game Stop and it occurred to me that I wanted to get Fran a copy of a WII game…so I pulled in.

There were 5 people in the store and one employee who was engaged in conversation with a customer pressing him for information that he kept on saying he didn’t have. He made no eye contact…we did not register. He kept on talking. I waited exactly 2 minutes 9I measure these things) and at the 120 second mark I said…come on now we are standing here and I was # 3 on the line). You want to know what this employee did…NOTHING. I swear to God…he didn’t look at me and kept right on talking.

I turned around said “see ya” and left.  Now Game Stop should fire this employee because he , in essence, stole from this company. He might as well had reached  into the register and pulled out 40 dollars (or whatever) because my sale was made.  But Game Stop will never know of this employee’s theft.

Oh yes…I went to the office and ordfer4ed from Amazon…delivery tomorrow …and less money than Game Stop (39.99+ tax)…..Amazon (29.00 no tax or shipping).  That is why I shop on Amazon. But if you interpret this right it is not Amazon that it is the enemy…the enemy are the employees who simply do not get it.

I was passing Game Stop and it occurred to me that I wanted to get Fran a copy of a WII game…so I pulled in.

There were 5 people in the store and one employee who was engaged in conversation with a customer pressing him for information that he kept on saying he didn’t have. He made no eye contact…we did not register. He kept on talking. I waited exactly 2 minutes 9I measure these things) and at the 120 second mark I said…come on now we are standing here and I was # 3 on the line). You want to know what this employee did…NOTHING. I swear to God…he didn’t look at me and kept right on talking.

I turned around said “see ya” and left.  Now Game Stop should fire this employee because he , in essence, stole from this company. He might as well had reached  into the register and pulled out 40 dollars (or whatever) because my sale was made.  But Game Stop will never know of this employee’s theft.

Oh yes…I went to the office and ordfer4ed from Amazon…delivery tomorrow …and less money than Game Stop (39.99+ tax)…..Amazon (29.00 no tax or shipping).  That is why I shop on Amazon. But if you interpret this right it is not Amazon that it is the enemy…the enemy are the employees who simply do not get it.

Bought a new car…free trial almost over. Called customer service to cancel old car subscription and transfer balance to new car. Simple…reasonable transaction. Should be no problem.  CSR picked up in reasonable amount of time but after getting all my information said she could not do the transaction and had to transfer me to the cancellation CSR who would cancel and move credit and continuation service to new car. Still reasonable. Had to wait 2 or 3 minutes . New CSR picks up and asks how he can help. I told him that previous CSR took all my information and I AM NOT GOING TO REPEAT IT…HE SHOUL;D HAVE IT…SHE TOLD ME HE WOULD HAVE IT IN A NOTE ON ACCOUNT. He said no …he has no information.  I said that I am not repeating the information and he should call the prior agent back and get it. He said no and (I am not making this up) He said “IT IS NOT MY PROBLEM.”  BAM…there you have it. It is not my problem…of course it is your problem.  After he repeated it is not his problem I used the F word and he said that I cannot speak to him like that to which I replied…he cannot treat me like that…and then I said F it and hung up.

I shouldn’t get so angry at things like this but I do.  I am paying 300 per year and I swear I was not asking them to move a mountain. I cannot believe that they can’t create a customer service system to do simple things on the first call with transfer.  We should never ever have allowed Sirius to merge with XM…with no competition I am forced to call back and try again some other time. Maybe I will choose  to not renew my subscription…probably not though.

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9:40am- The receptionist looks up and says I will be with you in a second.

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9:41am- phone rings and receptionist leaves the desk to handle some question

9:45am- receptionist returns finishes phone call does not look at me and …

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10:50am- receptionist asks my birthday …then address…then name

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10:53am- receptionist directs me to the lab

17 minutes for a task that should take 30 seconds…OMG

Rosetta Stone has in its fine print that YOU CAN’T SELL IT.
Rosetta Stone’s products are copyrighted and any unauthorized distribution is illegal…WHAT. Their user license agreement states that the license cannot be transferred.

I am flabbergasted…I am angry…Do not buy their products…do not recommend their products…burn their products…we should not be reinforcing companies like this who have total disdain and hate for their customer.

So I went to Google to find out where the sim card is on the iPhone. On the Razr (my old phone that I liked because you open and closed it like a Star Trek communication device) all you had to do was open the back slot of the phone and voila…there it was. But there is no way to open the iPhone except by smashing it and don’t think I didn’t think of doing that). The answer was right there on Google…there is a hole the size of a virus and you blow in it (no just kidding but read below) you find a pin (who has a pin these days) and push the pin in the hole and a card emerges…that is your sim card.
So I took the sim card out and blew on it…I have this belief that if you blow on anything it gets better. After doing this 5 times and trying to put the sim card in the slot. BTW…what does sim mean? Still…I did not have a sim card…at least that was what the phone was telling me.

So…I search for the error message and found incomprehensible solutions. I tried 7 of them…and each was worse than the previous so that by the time I really really really felt like throwing the phone against the wall I believe that things were worse than they were before.

I decided that Fran will deal with it having greater patience than me. That evening we went to the AT&T store because she had previously been there for help on her iPhone issue. I was ready for a fight. I was looking for a fight. I wanted to fight. I was going to give Fran a chance and then when they could not fix it I was going to go ballistic (just for the fun of it). Unfortunately I was stopped by the presence of a former student in the store…how could I act like an ass now. It is still possible but I try to avoid foolishness when there is someone who knows me.

So…the associate looked at the problem did a little hocus pocus with the sim card (after finding a sim ejecting tool…I am not making this up) and said the sim is broken we will give you a new one ..no cost. WOW…felling good now about my iPhone and AT&T.

So… sim in and phone on and OMG…every single app is gone. I will repeat…every single app is gone. WHERE DID THEY GO? NO problem, he said, with getting the apps back and he gave instructions. What can be hard about this. Two hours later I gave up and gave the problem to Fran because I was going to throw the iPhone against the wall. Fran called Apple support and waited and waited and waited and waited… oh yes she waited and waited some more. The rep tried to be helpful and got her to the point where she could see the apps in her iTunes account. He emailed a sheet which was supposed to get the apps on the phone.
Well these iInstructions Isucked. Three hours later I was no closer to getting the apps on the iPhone than my dog was when iThrow the iPhone at him. Now I am not a stupid guy (I actually have a PhD…not that that by itself makes you smart). But these instructions just did not do it.

So…I am iAngry and will be giving the iPhone to Fran again to see if she can deal with it for I am iPissed and IFrustrated and iHavehadenough.

Will this have a happy ending?
Will Richard Feinberg find his apps back on the phone
Will he become iHappy and iFeelgood. We shall iSee.

However, as a scholar and consumer behavior expert I think we need to send them a thank you note. I estimate that their wedding and pre and post spending of all involve has put 63 million dollars into the retail economy out there (I am not sure where there is but it is somewhere). That’s about 800k per day that would not have been spent. Compare that to the $20 per day I spend. They have done more for unemployment …retail sales and consumer confidence than I have certainly…they should get the medal of economic freedom and we should send them a thank you note.